Hydroptherapy meeting delay is ‘unreasonable’

A date has been set for an extraordinary council meeting into the failed sale and future of the city’s hydrotherapy pool.

Last week, all of the opposition leaders on the city council lent their support to a motion tabled by Councillor Aasiyah Joseph, which called for an extraordinary meeting into the decision to mothball the communityassetratherthansellit.

Thecity’smayorCouncillor Steven Lane had seven days to respond to the petition and provide a date for the meeting ifapproved,whichhasnowtaken place.

The councillors supporting themotionhavebeeninformed thatthemeetingwilltakeplace injustunderamonth’stimeon May 23.

This is three weeks after the local elections on May 5. Labour Group Leader Shaz Nawaz has claimed that a request for a meeting before the date of the elections was dismissed at the meeting issue was deemed as not an “urgent matter” and due to the fact it was too close to the election, it would be unreasonable to call a meeting until after they had passed.

Inresponsetothis,all30opposingcouncillorshavesigned an open letter to the Council Leader Wayne Fitzgerald, posing 16 key questions that want answering over the pool, within the next five days.

An extract from the letter reads: “Our attempt to call an emergency council meeting as quickly as possible so that we might put questions openly regarding the decision have, at the Mayor’s prerogative, been unfairlythwarteduntil23May, which we believe is an unreasonably protracted delay.”

Cllr Fitzgerald told the Peterborough Telegraph: “I will respond in due course after officershavepreparedthereply.”

Councillor Fitzgerald has said the council were left with no choice but to close the pool, because of the cost that would be required to get the site up to a standard where it could be sold, and because neighbouringHeltwateSchoolcouldneed the extra space.

When asked about the decision to propose a date for the meeting after the elections, a spokesperson for Peterborough City Council said: “Due to the fact that the council is currently in a pre-election period the mayor considered it to be unreasonable to call for a meeting,giventheproximityto the election, as it would cause many practical difficulties for members and officers, as well as being inappropriate to discuss a motion of this nature in this period.”

Inside the hydrotherapy pool in Peterborough.